Travis County Commssioners Court
November 12, 2002
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Item 3
We need to take up item 3 a and 3 b. 3 a is to approve order canvassing election returns and declaring results of the November 5, 2002, general election. 3 b is to approve order canvassing election returns and declaring results of the November 5, 2002, special constitutional amendment election. Good afternoon.
>> good afternoon, I'm gale fisher the elections division manager for the Travis County clerk. And in her absence, I want to present to you the -- the November 5th, 2002 joint general election results. And the final canvass of those results, I would request a waiver of the reading of the precinct by precinct results, please.
>> so move.
>> second.
>> okay.
>> if you were to do that full reading, it would be the information that you provided us in an attachment here.
>> yes. The 2,000 page attachment.
>> oh, that would be in the box there.
>> okay. That's the precinct reportment the key to the report is the 8 page summary in front of you.
>> gentleman, if you have presenting us in 3 a is an order that gets this done at -- it incorporates specific information that's in the box.
>> correct.
>> and --
>> right. The entire report is labeled exhibit a. That's why I move approval of 3 a. Any more discussion? All in favor, that passes by unanimous vote, commissioner Moore absent. 3 b.
>> on the final page of your summary, you have the results of the proposed constitutional amendment. And once again I request your approval of the proposed constitutional amendment and also request a waiver of the precinct by precinct reading of those reports and -- and -- -- the results for -- for our 136,549, against, 32,279.
>> that was the proposed constitutional amendment number 1.
>> yes, sir.
>> there was only one.
>> yes, that's it.
>> the only one. Okay. I move approval of the waiver of the specific information other than what's in the file cumulative.
>> second.
>> I move approval of the 3 b order.
>> seconded by commissioner Gomez. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Commissioner Moore absent and we do have a specific order.
>> correct.
>> to be signed.
>> what I thought was interesting is that in terms of what all of -- when it was all said and done, that we had a voter turnout of 41.14%.
>> thank you for mentioning that.
>> what is -- a, that is a good, healthy number, certainly not 100%, but certain healthier than a lot of the election results we had. Basically half of the people voting early, half of the people voted on election day, which is an unusual shift in people's voting patterns.
>> yes. And I'm glad to see that so many people, 106,551 people got a chance to try out the new election equipment which I think will speak highly in terms of us moving full steam ahead come -- come this spring with the city election. Considering --
>> thank you for mentioning that.
>> -- how many people are involved.
>> thank you, commissioner. Dana debeauvoir Travis County clerk. My apologies for -- I'm a little under the weather. Yet again that amount -- I just wanted to say that actually Travis County has the highest turnout for -- for per capita for any county in the state, we are really thrilled with that. And the -- at least before the canvass the estimates were that we were the number one slot. We are close in there with Williamson county. But of course that's -- that's significantly fewer numbers. The other thing that I would like to say is that Travis County voters, very typically, vote almost half. This time they clearly voted half, but almost half early voting, that's because you all allow us to do a -- an approach to early voting. No other county turns out nearly as many or I should say nearly as much of a percent of early voters as Travis County does. That's because you all make it easy for people to vote.
>> thank you.
>> certainly we are not going to be looking at 106,000 people voting in the city elections this spring, so we --
>> we hope so. [ laughter ]
>> yeah, right. You bet. We won't have to order paper ballots, so it doesn't matter.
>> but in terms of a lot of people being exposed to the new system, I think that speaks very highly that people that we know are motivated voters might have had a pretty good shot at trying out the new equipment early.
>> we do -- we did hear a lot of our voters at this location to provide support, all of that. All during the early voting period tell us that the reason they voted early this time was because they wanted to check out the new equipment. So we -- I don't think we can take credit for the huge turnout, but I think we can take some credit for the reallyarge turnout in early voting. There was a lot of interest. Since we had done such an -- an sensitive voter outreach. A lot of people heard about it, learned about it, wanted to try it out.
>> I think that you had a lot of -- of positive equipment --
>> me, too, I'm glad that you did.
>> saying hey, we like it. That's, you know, he want to continue to use it. I told them that we would probably have opportunities becoming available to you again.
>> yeah.
>> so --
>> let me just thank you --
>> pardon me.
>> I just said thank you.
>> people are really talking highly and speaking highly of it.
>> okay. Just one more thing real quick, I would like to thank gale fisher and michael wynn for running the smoothest counting station we have ever had. Our typical time for turning in results is 1:00, we did it by 12:26 this time even with a huge turnout. They ran a smooth operation, I would like to give them credit for that. Gale fisher.
>> and michael, give it up for michael.
>> I would like to say thank you to whomever the i.t.s. People were working on the website that night. Somebody hooked up to road runner service to watch the elections from the comfort of her home. It was amazing to see --
>> actually my staff and regina, griffin on one of my i.t.s. People that are -- they are --
>> literally when I was getting a phone call from people saying hi, they are distributing literally, very small disruption, dim you would refresh the web page there it was. That was not the situation in Williamson county, it was very difficult to get break downs and updates.
>> we have gotten more and more expense and competence and quickness at handling that website. Now, i.t.s. Was incredibly helpful when it came time to setting up control sheets, especially for telephone lines out in the early voting location. They were jewels to us in that regard.
>> I want to make sure the folks get included.
>> they know, they did a good job.
>> any other wishes to prolong this meeting.
>> move adjourn.
>> adjournment.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM